Introduction
While doing business in India, parties are prohibited from
executing anti-competitive agreements. Generally, the agreements
which cause or are likely to cause appreciable adverse effect on
competition ("AAEC") are
anti-competitive agreements. Such agreements may be horizontal or
vertical. However, the Competition Act, 2002
("Act") recognizes intellectual property
rights and to facilitate their protection, the Act permits
reasonable restrictions imposed by their owners. Similarly, the Act
exempts agreements between exporters as exports do not impact
markets in India. The Competition Commission of India
("CCI") has been given the authority to
direct any enterprise or person to modify, discontinue and not
re-enter into anti-competitive agreement and impose penalty, which
can be 10% of the average of the turnover for the last three
years.
